Why to hire a Storytelling Director
We don’t need bosses, but leaders with well-rounded culture
When I was a child, lots of people asked me “what do you want to be when you grow up?” The most frequent answers were basically similar to those of many other children: footballer, journalist, paleontologist (or sometimes all three). At that age, I preferred straight forward options, on one hand, because I didn’t know the complexity of the world, on the other because I wasn’t aware of the importance of job titles.
But, three decades later, I am very aware of it.
There can be a whole world inside a job title — and the related job description. Especially when you work in an ever-changing industry.
This is the kind of industry that I work in. The business of Imille is, to be exact, helping organizations — from start-ups to multinationals — in making the digital transition at the highest level. For this reason, the main skills needed concerning communication, design and technology, can’t be the prerogative of just one person. So, it has to build a super competent and heterogeneous team, made up of art directors, copywriters, developers, project managers, social media strategists, you name it — whereby it can acquire new clients and win significant awards.
But, in our overcrowded and fast-paced world, that isn’t enough. If you work with brands, you can’t just do your homework, you must go above and beyond to make them memorable.
And this means one thing: the use of communication, design and technology — combined — to tell a story. Just as a life without memories wouldn’t be worth living, a brand without stories wouldn’t be worth loving.
As humans, we are naturally programmed to be captivated and fascinated by stories.
Our cave-painting early ancestors didn’t walk into caves with crushed berries and twig brushes declaring, “I’m going to create some CONTENT!” When they passed down family legends around the fire after a long day of foraging and hunting, they didn’t say, “Gather round, everybody; it’s CONTENT TIME!”
Storytelling can transform any business, letting you build mini worlds where people feel comfortable, strengthen relationships and create useful conversations to understand your own brand better. The capacity of moving freely between real life and the digital landscape has become essential. Emerging technologies give brands new platforms to tell their own stories, engaging audiences from all around the world.
Furthermore, storytelling fosters empathy, respect and tolerance; maybe, the three things we need the most at the moment.
In fact, Brand Storytelling is the future of marketing.
The problem is that when you use stories like a spice added to a pre-cooked meal, the result is 100% bland and sloppy. Or what’s worse is thinking that brand storytelling itself is a goal, and not actually a means to the goal (as is shown by Marketoonist).
To have gourmet taste, instead, it’s necessary to put storytelling at the heart of the recipe in order to flavour the whole process (and then decide what ingredients to add or edit out). Only then can you provide a consistent Brand Experience across all platforms, from website to social media, from Artificial Intelligence to Voice Activated Apps, from events to Mixed Reality.
This is the reason to hire a Storytelling Director. To make this approach real.
The classical divisions of old-style agencies are out of fashion, disrupted by the market’s advances and by the new competencies of digital workers. In Imille, for example, we have project leaders — selected on the basis of their expertise — that have the power to supervise the work of colleagues and to make the final decision on a project. It’s not just “meritocracy”, since merit it’s nothing without collaboration and sharing.
We don’t need bosses, but leaders with well-rounded culture.
Managers that combine hard and soft skills, capable of finding the correct narrative for each client, with mentorship abilities, able to learn and skilled in Human Resources. Members of high performance, cross-functional teams.
In other words, Digital Heroes.
I grew up in southern Italy, the area between Africa and Europe where a word can mean something and its opposite. If when I was a child someone had told me about a job called “Storytelling Director”, I would have imagined an elderly man wandering the streets, unwrapping ancient legend scrolls. But now, I know that this figure not only exists, but plays a crucial role, both in the old-style world and more so in today’s modern one, driven by communication, design and technology.
Do you want to work in Imille? Discover the opened positions or send a spontaneous application here.
